"It is a great exhibition for teachers to see, because educators
have the amazing opportunity to enlighten, inform and inspire students
to learn more about their bodies," said Cheryl Mure, Vice President of
Education for Premier Exhibitions, Inc. "Teachers can take back what
they have learned and share it with their students, including the risks
associated with overeating and smoking."

Teachers will receive
an up-close look inside the skeletal, muscular, reproductive,
respiratory, circulatory and other systems of the human body.

The
specimens are meticulously dissected and preserved through an
innovative process, giving teachers and students the opportunity to
view the complexity of their own organs and systems like never
before.

Many of the whole-body specimens are dissected in
athletic poses, allowing guests to relate to everyday activities.

A
healthy lung is featured next to a black lung ravaged by smoking in a
vivid comparison more powerful than any textbook image.

For
complimentary admission, teachers will be asked to show a school or
district identification card at the Box Office.

Additional
guests may purchase tickets at the box office, online or by phone
at 888.263.4379.

Free downloadable teachers' guides
correlated to Arizona academic standards are also available for
reference.

The guides are divided into different educational
levels from kindergarten up to post-secondary, and feature activity and
resource ideas.

June 07, 2010

At
Desert Diamond Casino on Nogales Highway join local agencies to discuss
monsoon safety from 10 AM to 2 PM.

The National Weather
Service, Pima County Regional Flood Control District, local fire
departments and emergency management agencies, along with the American
Red Cross and even Vaisala, Inc., local experts in lightning, will be on
hand to answer questions and address concerns.

Just by
stopping by, you could win a brand new rain gauge.

If you win or
already have a rain gauge in your backyard, report rain totals to RainLog.org.

Bring the kids because outside the casino rescue equipment and
trucks will be on display.

June 04, 2010

TUCSON, AZ
(KOLD) - Bodies: The
Exhibition will offer $1 admission for the first 100 people on the
first 100 degree day in June.

The first 100 people to visit
Bodies: The Exhibition within 24 hours of the first 100 degree day in
June in Tucson (as designated by the National Weather Service), receives
admission for only a dollar at the Bodies Box Office. Simply mention
the password HOT at the box office.

Regular Adult Admission is
$22.

Today could be the first 100 degree day in June, but just
barely. If we don't hit 100 today, we will definitely hit it on
Saturday with a forecast high of 104 degrees.

Track the
temperature on our homepage at KOLD.com.
The current temperature is on the upper right.

Bodies:
The Exhibition is at the Rialto Theatre in downtown Tucson. It's open
Sunday through Thursday 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 10 a.m.
– 10 p.m.

June 03, 2010

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND (ASSOCIATED PRESS) – Some
South Pacific coral atolls have held their own or even grown
in size over the past 60 years despite rising sea levels, research
showed Thursday.

Some scientists worry that many of the tiny,
low-lying islands throughout the South Pacific will eventually disappear
under rising sea levels.

But two researchers who measured 27
islands where local sea levels have risen 4.8 inches (120 millimeters) —
an average of 0.08 inch (2 millimeters) a year — over the past 60
years, found just four had diminished in size.

The reason: Coral islands respond to changes in weather
patterns and climate, with coral debris eroded from encircling reefs
pushed up onto the islands' coasts by winds and waves.

Professor
Paul Kench of Auckland University's environment school and coastal
process expert Arthur Webb of the Fiji-based South Pacific Applied
Geoscience Commission, used historical aerial photographs and
high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land area of
the islands.

While four had gotten smaller, the other 23 had
either stayed the same or grown bigger, according to the research
published in the scientific journal Global and Planetary Change.

The
shape-shifting islands changed their size through what the pair
describe as ocean shoreline displacement toward their lagoons, lagoon
shoreline growth or extensions to the ends of elongated islands.

Kench
said it had been assumed that islands would "sit there and drown" as
sea levels rise. But as the sea rises, the islands respond.

"They're
not all growing, they're changing. They've always changed ... but the
consistency (with which) some of them have grown is a little
surprising," he told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Tuvalu, a
coral island group that climate change campaigners
have repeatedly predicted will be drowned by rising seas, has its
highest point just 14 feet (4.5 meters) above sea level. The
researchers found seven of its nine islands had grown by more than 3
percent on average over the past 60 years.

In 1972, Cyclone Bebe
dumped 346 acres (140 hectares) of sediment on the eastern reef of
Tuvalu, increasing the area of Funafuti, the main island, by 10 percent. Another island,
Funamanu, gained 1.1 acres (0.44 hectares) or nearly 30 percent of its
previous area.

A similar trend was found in Kiribati, where three
main islands also "grew." Betio expanded by 30
percent (89 acres or 36 hectares), Bairiki by 16.3 percent (14 acres or
5.8 hectares), and Nanikai by 12.5 percent (2 acres, or 0.8 hectares).

On World Environment Day in 2008, Kiribati President Anote Tong warned parts of
his island nation were already being submerged, forcing some of
Kiribati's 94,000 people living in shoreline village communities to be
relocated from century-old sites.

Worst case scenarios showed
Kiribati would disappear into the sea within a century, he said at the
time.

But Kench said the study shows the islands are coping with
sea-level change, with higher waves and water depth supplying sand and
gravel from coral reefs.

"In other words, they (the
islands) are slowly moving ... migrating across their reef platforms,"
he said. "As the sea-level conditions and wave conditions are changing,
the islands are adjusting to that."

But he warned an
accelerated rate of sea-level rise could be "the critical environmental
threat to the small island nations," with "a very rapid rate of island
destruction" possible from a water depth beyond a certain threshold. That
threshold is unknown.

Australian sea level oceanographer John
Hunter said the findings "are good news and not a surprise."

"Coral
islands can keep up with some sea-level rise, but (there's also) ocean
warming ... and ocean acidification ... that are certainly problematic
for the corals. Sea-level rise can actually make the islands grow — as
it apparently is doing," said Hunter, who did not participate in the
study.

While coral might adjust to ocean warming, ocean
acidification "will probably be the death knell of the coral reefs,"
leaving coastal management by humans as the only way of retaining and
rebuilding atolls, said Hunter, a researcher at the University of
Tasmania's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research
Center.

Commenting on the findings, New Scientist magazine noted,
"Erosion of island shorelines must be reconsidered in the context of
physical adjustments of the entire island shoreline, as erosion may be
balanced by progradation on other sectors of shorelines."

A new image transmitted by NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter shows signs of severe ice damage to the lander's
solar panels.

"The Phoenix spacecraft succeeded in its
investigations and exceeded its planned lifetime," said Fuk Li, manager
of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "Although its work is finished, analysis of
information from Phoenix's science activities will continue for some
time to come."

Last week, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter flew
over the Phoenix landing site 61 times during a final attempt to
communicate with the lander.

No transmission from the lander was
detected. Phoenix also did not communicate during 150 flights in three
earlier listening campaigns this year.

Earth-based research
continues on discoveries Phoenix made during summer conditions at the
far-northern site where it landed May 25, 2008.

The
solar-powered lander completed its three-month mission and kept working
until sunlight waned two months later.

Phoenix was not
designed to survive the dark, cold, icy winter.

However, the
slim possibility Phoenix survived could not be eliminated without
listening for the lander after abundant sunshine returned.

An
image of Phoenix taken this month by the High Resolution Imaging
Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter suggests the lander no longer casts shadows the way it did
during its working lifetime.

"Before and after images are
dramatically different," said Michael Mellon of the University of
Colorado in Boulder, a science team member for both Phoenix and HiRISE.
"The lander looks smaller, and only a portion of the difference can be
explained by accumulation of dust on the lander, which makes its
surfaces less distinguishable from surrounding ground."

Apparent changes in the shadows cast by the lander are consistent with
predictions of how Phoenix could be damaged by harsh winter conditions.

It was anticipated that the weight of a carbon-dioxide ice buildup
could bend or break the lander's solar panels.

Mellon calculated
hundreds of pounds of ice probably coated the lander in mid-winter.

During its mission, Phoenix confirmed and examined patches of the
widespread deposits of underground water ice detected by Odyssey and
identified a mineral called calcium carbonate that suggested occasional
presence of thawed water.

The lander also found soil chemistry
with significant implications for life and observed falling snow.

The
mission's biggest surprise was the discovery of perchlorate, an
oxidizing chemical on Earth that is food for some microbes and
potentially toxic for others.

"We found that the soil above
the ice can act like a sponge, with perchlorate scavenging water from
the atmosphere and holding on to it," said Peter Smith, Phoenix
principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "You can
have a thin film layer of water capable of being a habitable
environment. A micro-world at the scale of grains of soil -- that's
where the action is."

The perchlorate results are shaping
subsequent astrobiology research, as scientists investigate the
implications of its antifreeze properties and potential use as an
energy source by microbes.

Discovery of the ice in the uppermost
soil by Odyssey pointed the way for Phoenix.

More recently, the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected numerous ice deposits in middle
latitudes at greater depth using radar and exposed on the surface by
fresh impact craters.

"Ice-rich environments are an even
bigger part of the planet than we thought," Smith said. "Somewhere in
that vast region there are going to be places that are more habitable
than others."

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the
planet in 2006 to begin a two-year primary science mission.

Its
data show Mars had diverse wet environments at many locations for
differing durations during the planet's history, and climate-change
cycles persist into the present era.

The mission has returned
more planetary data than all other Mars missions combined.

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001.

The mission also has
played important roles by supporting the twin Mars rovers Spirit and
Opportunity.

The Phoenix mission was led by Smith at the
University of Arizona, with project management at JPL and development
partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver.

The University of
Arizona operates the HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace
and Technologies Corp., in Boulder.

Mars missions are managed by
JPL for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in
Washington.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.

May 24, 2010

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Researchers based at the
University of Arizona are tracking earlier blooms and movement of plant
and animal species in response to shifts in climate.

The National
Phenology Network, based at the U of A, digs through decades of
records and recruits citizens as well as scientists to track these
changes.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says tree budding, the
hatching of animal species, earlier blooms, and other traits of spring
show up about 10 days sooner.

This can be a mismatch for
animals.

In the Arctic, caribou decrease in number when there
are many freeze-thaw cycles and the nutritional plants they eat aren't
available.

Some 39 butterfly species are proceeding northward in
their range and some are emerging from their cocoons so early that
food isn't available.

Numerous birds, too, are expanding their
range northward, but don't always encounter preferred food or the brush
cover needed to hide from predators.

Perhaps one animal species
most vulnerable to a shifting spring climate is the American pika, a
rabbit-like animal that lives in western alpine mountain regions on
talus, or broken rock, habitat.

When prevented from regulating
their temperature behaviorally and exposed to even slight
warming—temperatures of 77 degrees Fahrenheit for six hours—pikas will
die.".

"The American pika may be an early-warning indicator of
generally how alpine species may respond to contemporary climate
change," said Erik Beever, Ph.D., a wildlife ecologist who has studied
pikas for the past 16 years. Beever added that the reduced snowpack of a
warmer spring can also have an array of important biological and
economic effects: for example, those associated with skiing and with
providing water for lower-elevation communities. "This is yet another
piece of evidence that parts of ecosystems are responding to changes in
climate," he said.

Like other animal species, pikas have a range
of behaviors that give them some flexibility to accommodate higher
temperatures or different precipitation systems, at least in part.

In
southern latitudes, for example, pikas go deep into cool areas of
their rocky surroundings to ride out the midday heat during the hottest
seasons of the year, Beever explained.

Regrettably, this
behavior means pikas can't forage all day, which may compromise their
ability to survive as temperatures rise.

A warming climate is
expected to change forests and other ecosystems.

More trees are
now taking root northward or upslope.

Some tree species are
expanding in population while other species, such as white spruce fir
trees, are not adjusting to the new conditions.

As boreal forests
of the Arctic region expand poleward into the tundra, some species of
seals and their main predator—the polar bear—are losing part of their
habitat during summer.

"The take-home message is that it's
important to learn from the observed changes in distribution, yet keep
in mind species' behavioral flexibility in managing climate change,"
said Beever.

May 21, 2010

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Security
systems could be more effective if officials looked at how organisms
deal with threats in the natural world, University of Arizona
researchers suggest in the May 20 edition of the journal Nature.

The authors are working with security and disaster management
officials to help put some of their recommendations – such as
decentralizing forces and forming alliances – into practice.

"Anytime
you have the illusion of full security, you get adaptation," said Rafe
Sagarin, an assistant research scientist in the UA's Institute
of the Environment who is the lead author of the opinion
piece. "Terrorists figure out unexpected means of attack, hackers come
up with new software to break through firewalls, and pathogens develop
resistance to antibiotics."

Instead of relying on large,
centralized bureaucracies that move slowly and often lag behind in
addressing threats, the authors encourage officials to look to the
natural world for principles that could prove less costly, more
flexible and more effective at countering threats.

The security
issues of modern human societies are analogous to those of many
organisms, according to Sagarin and his co-authors. In nature, risks
are frequent, variable and uncertain. Over billions of years, organisms
have evolved an enormous variety of methods to survive, grow and
proliferate on a continually changing planet. The key to their success
is their ability to quickly adapt to rapidly changing threats, and
change their structures, behaviors and interactions accordingly.

Avoid
centralization

Unlike many security agencies or entities in
the human world, the most adaptable and successful organisms avoid
centralization. Instead, they distribute tasks among decentralized,
specialized groups of cells or individuals.

Sagarin points to
the octopus' camouflaging strategy to illustrate this principle: Its
networks of pigment cells, distributed all over its body, react to and
match the colors of the surroundings, blending the animal into the
background.

"We can learn something from the octopus about the
war in Iraq and Afghanistan," Sagarin said, specifically with regard to
the threat from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Just
like the octopus' decentralized network of pigment cells, he pointed
out, troops on the ground function like independent sensors that can
assess a threat more accurately, more timely and more realistically
than a large, centralized organization that is geographically removed
from the action and largely follows a top-down approach of command.

"The
individual soldiers in the war zone are the most adaptable unit out
there," he said. "They are in a better position to recognize and
address an emerging threat in time than a centralized bureaucracy."

Sagarin
and co-authors point out that terrorist networks such as Al Qaida have
recognized the advantages of this approach and operate a loose network
of largely independent subgroups.

"About 1,500 soldiers had died
from roadside bomb blasts between the time troops identified the
threat and the time MRAPs (mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles)
were deployed to deal with the situation."

Even after the
blast-resistant vehicles arrived, they proved only moderately effective
against a quickly moving threat that is constantly changing and
rapidly adapting to new challenges.

"These MRAPs are huge,
lumbering things that weigh 16 tons," Sagarin said, "The insurgents, on
the other hand, drive around in small pickup trucks. They quickly
figured out the MRAPs were limited to certain roads and started placing
roadside bombs specifically along those routes."

Let the
attacker know you're ready

Another lesson could be learned
by looking at how organisms deal with the constant threat from
predators, according to the authors. A key feature is the capacity to
reduce uncertainty and turn it into an advantage.

Hunting prey
uses a lot of energy, Sagarin explained, which is why predators seek to
ambush their prey. As soon as the prey is aware of their presence and
ready to engage in defense, a pursuit might no longer be worth it.

Ground
squirrels, for example, use alarm signals when a predator is lurking
nearby, not only to warn their peers, but also to make it known to the
attacker its cover is blown.

"When a prey species makes an alarm
call of any kind, the game is up," Sagarin said. Suddenly, things have
become a lot harder - if you're a hawk, you want to swoop down on a
squirrel and not get scratched in the face."

Remarkably, ground
squirrels use alarm signals that are very specific to the threat. If
the predator is a mammal (which can hear), they utter alarm calls. If
it is a snake (which cannot) they use tail-flagging to signal its
presence.

The less specific an alarm call is, the less efficient
it is in eliciting an appropriate response, the authors argue and point
to the U.S. Homeland Security's threat advisory for national and
international flights, which has remained at level orange (high) since
August 2006. This static, ambiguous and nonspecific system creates
uncertainty or indifference among the population that it is meant to
help protect.

Form allies

Another principle often
observed in nature is symbiosis, the formation of allies.

"Symbiosis
is not always between friends," Sagarin said, pointing to the example
of cleaner wrasses, small fish specializing in picking parasites off
other marine animals, sometimes entering their mouths. The clients
could easily swallow the cleaner wrasse while it is going about its
job.

"But they don't," Sagarin said. "It's a mutual beneficial
relationship in which the larger fish provides the cleaner fish with a
food source and protection, and the cleaner keeps it free from parasites
in return."

A lesson of how symbioses can successfully be
applied in the human realm was demonstrated in Iraq in 2007, the
authors note, when Gen. David Petraeus's strategy to form alliances
with local leaders - including those who had been hostile - resulted in
more tip-offs about IEDs and fewer American casualties.

Issue
challenges

Two years ago, Sagarin and colleagues published a
book titled "Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous
World." The research group has since begun to "make its observations
more actionable for the people on the ground," as Sagarin put it.
Working with emergency management coordinators, cybersecurity experts,
soldiers, police chiefs, air marshals, homeland security officials,
fire chiefs and public health officials, the group's ideas have
generated a lot of interest.

"One of the main lessons we learned
is that issuing challenges is more effective than giving orders when
there is a need to develop security measures," Sagarin said. He pointed
to the DARPA Grand Challenge as an example, in which the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense put on a
prize competition for the development of a driver-less vehicle capable
of navigating difficult terrain on its own.

"Anytime you pose a
challenge, not only do you get a diverse population of problem
solvers, but you get them to learn from each another."

However,
despite decentralization, it is important to still have an overarching
structure to provide guidance and encourage the development of new
ideas.

"An octopus is still an octopus," Sagarin said, "not just a
random collection of cells."

"The bottom line of all this is,
you can't just put up a wall around something and expect it to protect
it against every possible threat. Attackers will always figure out a
way."

The Opportunity
rover will surpass the duration record set by NASA's Viking 1 Lander
of six years and 116 days operating on the surface of Mars.

The
effects of favorable weather on the red planet could also help the
rovers generate more power.

Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit,
began working on Mars three weeks before Opportunity.

However,
Spirit has been out of communication since March 22.

If it
awakens from hibernation and resumes communication, that rover will
attain the Martian surface longevity record.

Spirit's
hibernation was anticipated, based on energy forecasts, as the amount
of sunshine hitting the robot's solar panels declined during autumn on
Mars' southern hemisphere.

Unfortunately, mobility problems
prevented rover operators from positioning Spirit with a favorable tilt
toward the north, as during the first three winters it experienced.

The rovers' fourth winter solstice, the day of the Martian year
with the least sunshine at their locations, was Wednesday, May 12 (May
13 Universal time).

"Opportunity, and likely Spirit,
surpassing the Viking Lander 1 longevity record is truly remarkable,
considering these rovers were designed for only a 90-day mission on
the surface of Mars," Callas said. "Passing the solstice means we're
over the hump for the cold, dark, winter season."

Unless dust
interferes, which is unlikely in the coming months, the solar panels
on both rovers should gradually generate more electricity. Operators
hope that Spirit will recharge its batteries enough to awaken from
hibernation, start communicating and resume science tasks.

Unlike recent operations, Opportunity will not have to rest to regain
energy between driving days.

The gradual increase in available
sunshine will eventually improve the rate of Opportunity's progress
across a vast plain toward its long-term destination, the Endeavour
Crater.

This month, some of Opportunity's drives have been
planned to end at an energy-favorable tilt on the northern face of
small Martian plain surface ripples.

The positioning sacrifices
some distance to regain energy sooner for the next drive.

Opportunity's
cameras can see a portion of the rim of Endeavour on the horizon,
approximately eight miles away, across the plain's ripples of
windblown sand.

"The ripples look like waves on the ocean, like
we're out in the middle of the ocean with land on the horizon, our
destination," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
Squyres is the principal investigator for Opportunity and Spirit.
"Even though we know we might never get there, Endeavour is the goal
that drives our exploration."

The team chose Endeavour as a
destination in mid-2008, after Opportunity finished two years
examining the smaller Victoria Crater.

Since then, the goal
became even more alluring when orbital observations found clay
minerals exposed at Endeavour.

Clay minerals have been found
extensively on Mars from orbit, but have not been examined on the
surface.

"Those minerals form under wet conditions more neutral
than the wet, acidic environment that formed the sulfates we've found
with Opportunity," said Squyres. "The clay minerals at Endeavour speak
to a time when the chemistry was much friendlier to life than the
environments that formed the minerals Opportunity has seen so far. We
want to get there to learn their context. Was there flowing water? Were
there steam vents? Hot springs? We want to find out."

Launched
in 1975, Project Viking consisted of two orbiters, each carrying a
stationary lander. Viking Lander 1 was the first successful mission to
the surface of Mars, touching down on July 20, 1976.

It
operated until Nov. 13, 1982, more than two years longer than its twin
lander or either of the Viking orbiters.

The record for longest
working lifetime by a spacecraft at Mars belongs to a later orbiter:
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor operated for more than 9 years after
arriving in 1997.

NASA's Mars Odyssey, in orbit since in 2001,
has been working at Mars longer than any other current mission and is
on track to take the Mars longevity record late this year.

Science discoveries by the Mars Exploration Rover have included
Opportunity finding the first mineralogical evidence that Mars had
liquid water, and Spirit finding evidence for hot springs or steam vents
and a past environment of explosive volcanism.

M87,
the largest member of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, harbors a monster
in its heart.

This massive elliptical galaxy rotates around a
central black hole with a mass equivalent to many billions of times that
of our own sun.

While it is impossible to see the black hole
directly, we can see the result of its voracious appetite.

As
surrounding matter spirals into the cosmic maelstrom and disappears
from the visible universe, a jet of high-energy particles is spewing
out of the galaxy.

"While we might be used to seeing images like
this one from a space telescope like Hubble, capturing far-away objects
with this amount of detail is extremely hard to do with a ground-based
and comparatively small instrument like our 24-inch RC Optical Systems
telescope," said Adam Block from the UA's Mount Lemmon
SkyCenter.

Capturing cosmic phenomena like this will be a
little bit easier once SkyCenter receives a 32-inch version of the
telescope provided by the Schulman Foundation later this summer.

SkyCenter
telescopes are available for the public to look through each night of
the year as part of the center's public outreach programs.